PUBLISHER'S CORNER WEIGHED DOWN TONY CORPIN, PUBLISHER H
ave you ever felt the stress of managing multiple projects and deadlines in the workplace before? I’m pretty sure the answer is yes! As a manager or employee, you often have to multitask and manage your workload on multiple projects each day. Some projects are short and take just a few hours or days to
complete, while others can take months or even years. Managing multiple projects, deadlines or other pressures at work can be stressful, so it is important to take the time to organize your work and schedule. Our team at STN Media always feels the stress, whether caused by the nearly constant production of magazine editions or preparing for the annual STN School Bus EXPO in Reno each July. Tat stress was exacerbated by last year’s acquisition of the Transporting Students with Disabilities
and Preschoolers National Conference and Exhibition (TSD Conference). We were lucky to have a talented team with prior experience in producing conferences and trade shows, plus we were fortunate enough to retain the services of TSD Conference founder Roseann Schwaderer. She assisted with the planning for this year’s event, which successfully concluded last month after a full year of hard work. All of these projects are enormous undertakings, especially when it comes to producing the con-
ferences. It takes a village to organize the educational tracks and curriculum, speaker assignments, dozens of individual travel itineraries, attendee registration, exhibitor space for the trade show and all the details of the Roadeos into one location and to making it all feel seamless. Tis summer, we’ll are also celebrating the 20th anniversary of the STN EXPO, which only adds to the pressure of making 2013 an extraordinary year. Another reason why it's extraordinary is this thing called sequestration, which will be very stressful for school districts nationwide as officials make preparations for the next school year. Tis seizure of some $85 billion in federal funds, which for K-12 education targets such programs
as IDEA, Title I, the McKinney-Vento Act and Head Start, will likely also trickle down to transpor- tation departments. After dealing with five or six years of stress caused by shrinking budgets tied to the Great Recession and housing bust, many are now bracing themselves for another round of route reductions, job cuts and perhaps another suspension of fleet and equipment replacements. According to some transportation professionals, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,
also known as “Obamacare,” is already causing stress at school districts. Increased health-care expenses, say some, could force districts and even companies to cut staff and driver hours. Te stress lies in the challenge of finding a solution that is a win-win for everyone. Drivers working more than 30 hours per week are required to have affordable health care. If transpor-
tation departments try to cut down to 28 hours per week, they could experience driver shortages. Also consider the potential of exceeding hours on activity trips and field trips, which have unknown time considerations, such as a sports team’s game going into overtime. One transportation director instituted a policy of an “inconvenience stipend” for drivers. It’s defined as “pay for idle hours” under the above-ref- erenced federal regulation. All such payments are not associated with on-duty time and are not used as a factor in calculating overtime compensation. Have you been putting off decisions on how to deal with these stressful challenges? Or have you been taking a proactive approach to the issues looming over your operations? It might seem like there is nothing you can do about these stresses, but remember to prioritize and
tackle the most important jobs first. Do not waste your time on less important tasks. Don’t sweat by taking on too many unimportant jobs. Managing stress is all about taking charge of your thoughts, emotions, schedule and the way you deal with challenges that do arise. As a professional in the school transportation industry, you know all too well how to adapt to a
changing environment. But as the pressures mount in the coming months, be sure to use proper time management to help make your lives a little easier.
58 School Transportation News March 2013
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60